By the 1820s the Winter St. portion of the O’Neil farm had been expanded to 120 acres by the real estate dealings of Ira Chandler. Its bounds crossed what is now Route 53/Kingstown Way and up to Summer St. Yet Ira Chandler was an enigma. His life was a fairly common one for a Duxbury farmer of that time. He was born at the time of the Revolution, came of age in the boom years for Duxbury shipyards and died of consumption at age 74. But in between, details of his life set into motion changes for the O’Neil farm. He had five wives (a record even then), a number of children hard to trace, since their births were never recorded, and he consistently had trouble paying off various mortgages. He also probably had the family farmhouse, built by his father in the 1750s, moved to a new location on the land sometime after his father’s death in 1795.

Ira’s oldest son Nathan seems to have been the more responsible one, the family member with the closest connection to the farm. Nathan never married and throughout his life worked to regain much of his family’s acreage. Farming in New England in the 1840s and 50s was a losing business, even for land with soil as rich as the O’Neil’s. Many West Duxbury farming families lost their children to the lure of the sea, or the west, or of better wages in New England factory towns. Nathan Chandler, however, stubbornly stuck to his family farm and regained control in 1855 of the core 22 acres. When he was older, he made an agreement with a young Plymouth family that they would live on the farm, care for him and that when he died the farm would then be theirs. He died of smallpox in 1864 at age 63 and it is unclear why his agreement with the family was not followed. Once again, the O’Neil farm was threatened with disintegration as relatives and creditors took over portions.

In contrast to the tough times the Ira Chandler family had on the Winter St. part of the  farm, the branch of the Chandler family on Autumn Avenue was thriving. Nathaniel Lewis Chandler bought the former Russell family farm in 1829, and consistently expanded it until his death in 1890. At one time he owned more than 250 acres that encompassed all of today’s Clearwater and Lake Shore Drive neighborhoods. Much of the land was wooded, and this resource provided a steady income from lumbering, horse teaming and a sawmill on Pine Street, even as the profitability of crop and dairy farming declined.

A new chapter in the O’Neil farm opened in 1866 when Ebenezer Avery bought the core of the Winter St. portion. He was a successful newspaper publisher from Vermont, who had spent a few years in Plymouth where his son had bought the Old Colony Memorial paper. Avery was looking for a place he could restore and make into a model dairy farm. He found it in the Nathan Chandler land on Winter Street. He steadily bought back portions from various owners, until by 1880 he owned about 69 acres. For the first time since it had become a farm in 1740, the O’Neil farm was owned by someone who wasn’t a Chandler or a native of Duxbury. More important for the story, Ebenezer Avery also brought with him his wife and daughter, both named Rosamond.

In due time Rosamond Avery met and married Horatio Chandler, who lived on the next-door farm, son of Nathaniel Lewis and Sally Chandler. Their marriage in 1874 brought together not only two prominent West Duxbury families but also their collective lands, which is how the O’Neil farm has its two distinct portions; one on Winter St. and one off Autumn Avenue. After her father’s suicide in 1881, Rosamond inherited his farm. Rosamond and Horatio Chandler were Carl O’Neil’s great grandparents and it is interesting to note how for two generations the O’Neil farm passed to the women.

Horatio Chandler and his brothers continued to expand their father’s lumbering, teaming and sawmill business on Autumn Avenue while continuing dairying on Winter Street. To help with his business, Horatio took on a young and hopeful man from Nova Scotia named Edward O’Neil. In 1900 O’Neil married Rosa Chandler, Rosamond and Horatio’s youngest daughter, and they began their married life on Winter Street. Once again, a newcomer to Duxbury brought renewed youth and vigor to the farm, and soon it became known as the O’Neil farm.

Edward O’Neil quickly became part of his adopted town. He continued the wood and lumber business until 1922. After that, he continued the dairy farm while also becoming the highway superintendent for Duxbury, maintaining and improving town roads through the hard years of the depression and war. His nephew James also came to Duxbury, eventually becoming police chief, and the O’Neil name became known for public service.

After Edward O’Neil’s death in 1956, Rosa turned over her family farm to her three grandchildren, Barbara, Ed and Carl. Ed and Carl ran the farm with the help of their parents Horatio and Alice. Carl, like his grandfather O’Neil, balanced running a full scale dairy farm with working in the fire department, where he eventually became Duxbury’s fire chief. Carl’s wife Priscilla worked for many years at Berry Brook Preschool, another beloved local institution.

Neighborhoods began to grow on the fringes of the O’Neil farm in the 1960s and 1970s as Duxbury’s population expanded onto agricultural land. Yet in the Winter St./Autumn Ave. area there is a comfortable fit between the houses and the cows.

Today, the O’Neil farm is poised on the brink of another big change. In its long 265 year history, each time change has threatened the farm, someone has risen to the occasion to save it ñ a responsible son or newcomers from Vermont and Nova Scotia ñ and the farm has endured. That tradition of saving the farm is as deep as the rich soil and worthy of preserving.